


Flame Eternal

by polotiz



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Clexa, F/F, Heavy Angst, Post-Season/Series 03, can't let this go, first timer, maybe au, not sure, what were they thinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-08 16:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7764520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polotiz/pseuds/polotiz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Clarke.”<br/>A growl erupts from her throat. Even her name sounds awful to her own ears. She doesn’t like the sound of it spoken anymore and demands that to be so.<br/>It doesn’t sound the same, when it does not come from her lips.</p><p>Or</p><p>The one where I shamelessly try to manipulate canon so clexa wins</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What Wars we Fight

**Author's Note:**

> Umm... so, this is my first attempt at fiction in this fandom, which is quite daunting given the incredible quality of Clexa works out there I have been shamelessly bingeing on the last couple of weeks.  
> I won't say go easy, because frankly, I'm doing this for my own sanity first and foremost. But if you like it, then maybe I can stay... and that would be a real bonus :)  
> T

The room still smells of her.

She stands at the balcony, staring out over lands she has yet to know and yet to understand. Lands that seem both lighter and darker now.

A breeze floats sharply from the south and it tangles with her hair, whipping the ragged braids and unkempt tendrils upward and across her face, before altering direction somewhere to the darkness below.

She closes her eyes, pulls a heavy breath into her lungs, and tries to remember a time when she didn’t feel… so _empty_.

“ _Wanheda_.”

The call comes from just inside her front door, but she ignores it. She ignores the sound of approaching footsteps searching for her presence somewhere within the walls. She would not hear what they had to say, not tonight. She would not be what they wanted. She has done everything… _everything_ they have asked for. Sacrificed everything.

They could afford her this one courtesy.

Luna had.

So she keeps her back turned, opening her eyes again to the sky, both despising and longing for the past in equal measures.

But she feels the presence behind her, _feels_ the curtains drawn back and it frustrates and _angers_ her, because the person on the other side is not the person she wants it to be.

It never will.

“Clarke.”

A growl erupts from her throat. Even her name sounds awful to her own ears. She doesn’t like the sound of it spoken anymore and demands that to be so.

It doesn’t sound the same, when it does not come from _her_ lips.

“Do not address me in that way again.” She snaps, without turning around. “I am not her.”

She is not.

She is _nothing_.

“I am sorry, _Wanheda_ ” The voice returns more quietly, and she knows it to be Garan, one of _Heda’s_ bodyguards. “I did not mean to offend you.”

Her fingers grip the railing, tight, and she closes her eyes again against the expanse. She would afford him sympathy. She would afford him the mis-step. He had known her before. He had…

_Known._

_‘Heda and Wanheda will always be.’_

Her chin falls to her chest and her shoulders sag, at once bearing the weight of a thousand possible decisions and subsequent outcomes, none of which result in tonight. None of which she wanted.

“I am sorry, Garan.” And she is. “Tonight is… difficult.”

“I understand, _Wanheda_.” He says. “You fought hard, to bring her here.”

She looks up again, out into a darkness dotted by tiny flames, and she finds herself both afraid of the view and desperate to escape somewhere into it. To be amongst the trees…. Away from the places they travelled together. Somewhere, _anywhere_ away from here.

“You should be there tonight.”

Her teeth set in irritation, and she braces her arms firmly against the railing, holding her body still, stiff, holding…

“You know my feelings on this, Garan.” She whispers. “You of all people.”

”I do.” The reply is short. “I also know _Heda_. I know _her_ feelings. This is her legacy.”

His insistence belies his years, and she hates him for it. _She_ had told her once, that had he been _Natblida_ , he may very well have been her successor. Him, even before Aden.

The thought alone drives an awful pain into her chest, and she fights the urge to rip the railing form its anchor and carve out her own heart.

“You should be there.” Garan says again, and she hates him for it, because she knows it is true. “The ceremony needs its _Fleimkepa_.”

She shakes her head, and turns away from him.

“I was keeper of only one flame.” She says, “It is gone now.” The words turn her tongue bitter and her stomach into lead.

The ascension had been a private affair; one of both Luna and Wanheda’s wishes. Nobody needed to die for this ritual, Luna wanted nobody present to witness it.

Besides Garan, and Indra.

She had unravelled the material with all the reverence it deserved, opened the book to the pages she had rehearsed a thousand times… and removed the tiny tin… that tin she had sewn a pocket into her shirt for. A pocket that rested no less than a millimetre above her heart and even as she removed it, even though she _knew_ it was the right thing, she could have sworn she felt her heartbeat strike through her chest to where it lay.

The words had been uttered, the transition complete.

…And for a desperate moment, _Clarke_ had waited with all of the expectance and the will and the _hope_ … Waited, eyes wide and lips slightly parted and mouth impossibly dry, for the moment the hurt and the fear and the _knowing_ would be pulled from her, that the cold, insidious ache in her heart would be warmed by just a spark... just a flitter of a moment… just a hint of the green that she had come to know as _home..._ of recognition in the eyes ahead of her. Of the _truth_

…but only dark, only the night had looked back at her.

…and _Clarke_ had nodded, hollowly, and the spark died on an unfulfilled promise, as the empty words of the _Fleimkepa_ obediently welcomed Luna as all commanders had been welcomed before.

And _Wanheda_ had wondered then, if it was possible for a heart to break a third time.

“I am not going, Garan.” She says, and there is a finality to her tone that even the young man has to accept. “Luna gave me this pardon. I expect you to respect it.”

The drums echo down the hall, where she knows the thirteen clans gather to salute their new leader. Wanheda glances over her shoulder to the younger man, who appears to shuffle on his feet.

She nods.

“-but you, Garan, must go in my place. You will be my ambassador.”

His eyes widen, revealing a maturity beyond his years.

“ _Wanheda_ I couldn’t-“

She turns on him. “You must.” She says, and for a moment, the insistence she uses to elevate his position calms the ache in her chest. “You must go as _Wanheda’s_ representative.” She narrows her eyes. “I am still a part of the council, Garan, regardless of what others may think of me. I require eyes and ears at the formal announcement tonight.”

“It should be you.” He attempts, one more time. “If not for our people, for yours.”

Her breath hitches in her throat and her fingers toy with the embroidery of her dress. _Her_ people. Her mind is cast back to a time when the concept itself would have incited her to lay down everything…. _Do_ anything…

Her fingertips curl tightly into the material, gripping it until her knuckles turn white.

She _had_ given everything. Done… _everything_.

 _…Lost_ everything.

“I will not go, Garan.” She speaks firmly. “I will not repeat myself on this.”

The young man nods, the quiet bob of his head revealing the white of a scar trailing from his temple to the centre of his crown, carving through his dark hair. She remembers the story of the scar, remembers the day he told it; stiffly and in broken English in front of _Heda,_ who insisted he learn the language and watched as he recited it over and over, until Wanheda approved.

And as he leaves, she realises her heart is aching again.

The sound of drums pushes into the night air; displacing the quiet. The roars of ceremony fill her ears with uncomfortable familiarity.

She gathers the robe more tightly around herself, pretending she isn’t aware of how loosely it now hangs on her shoulders… how her rounded edges have sharpened; how the leanness of her new frame is concealed by so much cloth it requires a belt to hold it together.

How large it all feels, draped over her shoulders.

Or perhaps, how small _she_ feels.

And she knows, she _knows_ she does not want to be there. She has earned the right to stay away. She has been granted that right, and she will not go.

…Except she does.

…She should have known she would.

The room is filled with bodies, filled with living, breathing bodies. She realises, that is the only way she looks at them now, and the ache in her heart pulses hotly down her veins. How little connection she has to them…. To _anyone_.

She finds herself tucked away in the shadows just inside the giant, ornate doors, pressed against the concrete wall as if she could disappear into it if she moved only a fraction further.

In the centre of the room stands Luna, dark and powerful in the dress of the _Heda_ raises a glass to the heavens.

They had come far for this moment. Fought so hard, lost so many, sacrificed everything…

“To the coalition.” She booms. “To a legacy true, born of good will and sacrifice.”

The crowd roars to life, bringing with it the promise of the future they had hoped for, _fought_ for… but the weight in her heart is too great to join, so she remains still, fastened to the darkness.

Sacrifice has taken on new meaning to her, these days.

Luna sweeps her raised hand across the room and back again, as if seeking, searching, until her eyes fall on the corner she is standing, a small smile touching the new _Heda’s_ lips as she lifts her goblet higher, nodding very slightly towards her.

“Life, my friends, is about more than just surviving.”

Her mouth goes dry.

…Her breath halts in her chest

The room spins,

And she flees.


	2. The Demons in Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whoops - might have put an inbetween chapter....  
> So now it's 2 of 3

She does not make it to the balcony this time. Her feet will not take her beyond the first steps inside her room, will not move beyond the silence the shuttered door now afforded her. Her body still trembles with the echo of the words left ringing in her ears, spoken by a voice so foreign and eyes so _dark_ her very spirit warred with the woman’s right to utter them.

 _Her_ own words.

 _Their_ words.

And the empty void in her soul suddenly blooms with rage, and with a strangled cry a small, ornate knife hurtles across the room, lodging deep into one of the timber columns by the bed.

How dare she… how _dare_ she take those parts, of all; the ones spoken so sacredly and whispered so carefully between them... The ones she clung to when nights were so painful and desolate she slept with a blade at her throat and a gun by her temple, in the hope she might wake up with the courage to use either.

…The words that echoed inside a tiny tin pressed near and close to her heart, that she would have given her life for, over and over again.

Now gone.

She is frozen, still; rigid in this room where her hope and _their_ hope diverged. Where their future is her pain to bear. Their celebration her dirge.

And Garan is right; she has fought so hard to bring this to bear.

…But now it is here she is unsure she can bear it.

The Commander had _her_ words. They were _hers_.

And now they have been taken from her, too.

There is a short knock against her door and in first instance she believes it to be Garan, but her rational thought reminds her of his reticence to knock at such times, and the sound is more hesitant than she has learned the young man’s to be.

It comes again, and a voice, muffled through the damaged panes of glass gives a name to the owner. She stiffens further, fingers clasped into tight fists by her side, her lips pressing firmly together as she fights the urge to bark a command that might be her right to give, but now is not her _place_.

She does not invite her in. She does not need to. The Commander goes where she wishes.

Her body holds rigid and a breath swells up within her, rolling out from her lips and down her body like a wave as she attempts to divest herself of the emptiness and hollowness inside.

 _Wanheda_ turns, as the door clicks closed.

She has come alone.

“Heda.” She says. “I… shouldn’t you be at the festivities?” She glances behind the woman, still dressed in the ceremonial clothing of First Address. Here, in those clothes, in _this_ room, it makes her stomach lurch and words drift thickly along her throat.

The Commander does not reply straight away, instead, she regards her carefully, taking in her full appearance; eyes scanning from the top of her head down to the faded sandals on her feet.

“I wanted to thank you." She finally says. "For coming.” Her eyes fall to the floor and rise again. “It was… important.”

 _Wanheda_ scoffs, a reflex action to a sentiment long past. The Commander’s eyes flash with… something she cannot place, and she realises one heartbeat later that _this_ is her new reality.

“I am afraid..” She says, taking a calming breath. “The name _Wanheda_ holds less influence than it once did.”

But Luna shakes her head.

“The opposite.” And the words are spoken with finality; with no room between the syllables for debate.

Luna's eyes darts from the bed, to the bundle of furs gathered on the floor, and back again, softening as they meet hers. “You still will not sleep there.” She says, and if her irises weren't so... dark _, she_ might feel… there was something… Luna tilts her head. “Why will you not take different quarters? You know I have offered-“

“-These are fine, _Heda_.” She tries to control her tone, keep it low and even. She does not want to explain her reasons for returning to the place where _she_ died. She does not want to explain that her pain and her breath are one and the same. That she does not exist without either.

She cannot.

“You cannot sleep well on the floor.”

“I slept for years on the ground.” She shoots back, and for a moment the fire calms the emptiness, as she adds. “These quarters are fine.”

The Commander’s lips twitch to one side, and she inhales carefully, slowly… before she speaks again.

“Clarke…”

_Clarke._

It is enough to be spoken by soldiers and strangers, but for her… _her.._ bile rises suddenly to her throat, and she takes an immediate step backward, acutely aware of the knife that is no longer at her hip.

“Don’t.” She hisses, eyes narrowing. “You know my feeling on this, Luna. You of all people…”

Dark... _dark_ eyes flicker upward. The look of confusion deepens on The Commander’s face. She takes a step forward, brow furrowed, and _Wanheda_ raises a hand protectively outward from her body.

“Stop.” She breathes. “Please.”

 “I… feel your pain.” Comes instead.

She pulls a sharp breath between her teeth. The words send cold fury crawling through her bones and her hand drops at once, fists clenching again by her sides.

How _dare_ that woman speak those words.

Not even _she_ understands her own pain. Not even _she_ can find purchase on it, not in the nights when she awoke gasping and clutching her chest as if the pressure of her own hand was the only thing holding her heart inside it. Not in the days where she fought for them… fought to find Luna, to convince Luna, not in the briefest of moments where she looked desperately into eyes transitioning into those of the Commander, hoping… seeking…

And finding nothing.

“With respect, Commander,” She replies icily. “You cannot.”

She could not. She could _not._

She knows her heart aches. It aches and it bleeds and she wants it to stop and she closes her eyes to control the burning sensation that claws up her throat.

She wants it to _stop._

But she doesn’t stop. _It_ doesn’t stop.

And Luna stands firmly in front of her, head cocked to one side.

“You do not take care of yourself.” She says, “Lexa… feels it. And therefore, so do I.”

She is frozen.

 _Clarke_ … is frozen.

It is the first time she has heard her name uttered in Polis since returning, and it sends a jolt of pain through her entire body. Her fists, clenched so tightly, slowly rise until they cross over her sternum, and she shakes her head, hair swaying forward over her shoulders as she takes another step backward, elbows pressed into her abdomen, the sharpness of bone appeasing the agony of….

_Lexa.._

In her minds' eye, the furs behind her are no longer on the floor. They have returned to the bed, dark and poisoned, stained black with night blood. With _her_ blood.

“ _Please_ ” The sound is weak and helpless and slips from her tongue without her bidding. Her fingers clutch again at the empty pocket above her left breast as the word drags itself inward, only to be spat out again moments later in a half-sob. "Please."

Luna takes another step toward her. Something has changed in the Commander’s expression. Something the _fleimkepa_ cannot place. Something _Wanheda_ does not understand.

But _Clarke_ … Clarke sees.

And she drops to her knees, eyes wide, soul bare… pleading… _pleading._

Luna stands before her. And then, on the cold ground, in the great expanse between them but only inches apart on the concrete floor, she kneels.

“Close your eyes.” The Commander whispers.

…she doesn’t need to. Clarke has already shuttered the room. The world. _Everything_. She sees only darkness and the flash of green that had kept her… betrayed her, saved her… _loved_ her.

She pushes her fists tightly against her chin, feels the burn of her abdomen as she holds the grief so tightly around herself. So close to her that she might know it was never close at all, but _everywhere._

“Clarke.”

Suddenly fingertips are on her cheeks; a touch so familiar it stokes the pain and fires it through every synapse to the point she wishes nothing more than to throw the hand, the _body_ away, until-

“Clarke.”

_Clarke_

“…Listen to my words, not my voice.”

Clarke’s breath halts and her body tenses to the point she is convinced she is going to _break._  Until slowly… so slowly she feels a forehead pressed against hers.

“Clarke, I am here.”


	3. Requiem

The _Fleimkepa_ grits her teeth

_Wanheda_ pushes back, her breath hot and controlled.

“ _Heda,”_ she utters through clenched teeth. “What are you doing.”

But fingers thread through her hair, thread all the way to her nape, holding her in place.

“Remember the city of light, Clarke?” comes the whisper, and she gasps as the voice follows with the haunting echo of a promise brought to life in another woman’s voice, “Remember what I promised?”

She pulls more tightly around herself, desperately clutching to the shattered fragments of her heart that threaten to drag her very soul through the empty pocket that once held them.

“Please-“ she begs, “You can’t be-“

It couldn’t be….

_Please_ let it be.

The forehead against hers tilts, shifts…

The question slips so close to her ear she almost bites through her tongue. She feels the thudding of her heart in her chest and the rush of blood in her ears and she tries.. she _tries_ to right herself but she cannot.

“Do you remember what you said to me there?”

_Clarke_ trembles, head shaking in a last-ditch attempt to keep herself. A second, disbelieving hand cups her cheek, thumb grazing over an injury long healed, actions louder than words could ever be.

“I remember.” Soothing syllables blend from voice to voice, until there is nothing but the one she always knew. “I remember.”

It sounds like _living_. 

“ _Ai hod yu in._ ”

_Clarke_ breaks.

Her body folds forward, like the hinge at her hips have never intended to operate any differently. The forehead slips away from her as she descends, falling so closely to the floor she can smell the clay and the stones etched into the concrete.

The movement does not dislodge the hands at her cheeks and she can feel them burning, scorching down her skin until she realises they are her own tears and the fingertips are only wiping them away in careful, _careful_ movements she knows only to be-

Her own fingers tangle desperately in the edges of foreign fabric.

Warm breath washes over her left temple as a shadow falls shakily over her body and she knows it she is not shaking but _sobbing_ , and she grips at the edges of another person’s tunic and sobs and _sobs_ ….

And Clarke calls out once in her self-imposed darkness, just _once_ with the last shreds of hope she finds clinging to her soul

“Lexa…”

She feels a nose nudge hers. Feels the trembling ghost of a kiss on her forehead, chased by fingers that weave back into her hair.

“I lost you.” Clarke’s voice is hoarse and broken and bloody from the tears and _hurt_ that has consumed her, and it spills from her lips with pitiful insistence. “I _lost_ you.”

“I am here, Clarke.”

“I looked for you..” She murmurs, shaking her head in weak protest when she is tugged forward so her forehead rests against a firm shoulder. “You weren’t there. I thought-“

Slow, careful circles sooth the space between her shoulder blades, and she finds herself succumbing to them, tension ebbing slowly away.

“…I thought my fight was over.” the words spoken gently by her temple send an involuntary shudder through Clarke as she remembers the last time they were spoken. Arms close around her, holding her. Stilling her, anchoring her. “I was not prepared for someone to fight harder for me.”

“I couldn’t let you go.” Muffles into fabric.

“I know.”

“You underestimated me.”

Clarke feels the nod, feels the small smile tug at the lips that rest against her skin.

“My spirit chose wisely.” Melts warmly into her ear, collecting in the space to the left of her chest in a way she had been convinced would never again be possible. “As did my heart.”

A final sob escapes Clarke, and she turns her head to the side, hearing the quiet thud of a heartbeat under her temple. 

“I’m tired, Lexa.” She murmurs against the body holding her. “I’m tired of fighting, I’m tired of losing.” She leans back and for the first time, her eyes blink open. “I’m tired.”

Hands frame her face, eyes deep and dark and beautiful and _boundless…_ and Clarke allows them to study her, allows them the passage of contours and blemishes and rest briefly at the curve of her mouth. The smile lingers, soft, and subtle, and although it is not the same shape as Clarke remembers…. It is still achingly _familiar._ Slowly, the cold places Clarke’s body begin to warm.

The woman rises, carefully pulling Clarke with her until they are both standing, and she places a steadying hand on Clarke’s shoulder when she wobbles listlessly on her feet.

“Come with me.” She says, holding another hand between them for Clarke to take, not presuming, just… waiting. Clarke stares it a long while, before finally, she reaches forward, fingers interlocking easily, winding around each other and holding on, and Clarke allows herself to be led from the room, led into the quiet corridor that barely echoes with the celebration several floors down.

The Commander’s room is as it was the last time she had seen it; and her heart lurches and feet drag with the weight of the memory, and she squeezes her eyes shut against the noise of it all.

She is no longer moving, and Clarke starts a little when she feels a hand slide along her opposite arm, up and over her shoulder, coming to rest at her neck, fingertips pushing lightly into the muscles tensing at her nape.

“Clarke.” The sound of her name unlocks her lungs and slowly, she fills them again with the air at the unspoken reassurance.

_I am still here._

She nods, a staccato of tiny movements as the same breath leaves her lips and just as she moves to open her eyes the hand by her shoulder lifts and rests over them, gently.

“It is alright.” The words mixed with the warmth across her eyelids spreads down her cheeks, along her neck, down her spine and Clarke feels herself sway forward, until she is once again wrapped in a loose embrace, her forehead meeting the top of a shoulder. A hand winds into her hair as she hears the voice again speak effortlessly to her battered soul. “You are safe.”

The air is warm and fuzzy and thick and Clarke forgets she is standing until she realises she is not, that she is being lowered gently onto a bed and she is sinking into furs and warmth and surrounded by the smells of lavender and pine and _Lexa_ …. And sleep is so very very close when her hand reaches clumsily out to tangle again in coarse fabric and her eyebrows knit tightly together as she searches for the question that haunts her.

She doesn’t need to, when in answer the mattress dips and small puffs of air tickle her cheek before warm lips mark her skin.

“I will be here when you wake.”

And as fingertips trace patterns on her forehead and temple and the hum of a soft wood song wraps itself tightly around her heart, Clarke feels herself finally enveloped by a calm she has not felt since the last time she had lay in this very room _._ A sleep, comforting and healing beckons, and for the first time in as long she is not _Wanheda_ , or _Fleimkepa_.

She is simply _Clarke_ , and she is home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the late posting of chapter 3.   
> Thank you for the kudos and comments and even if you just snuck by to stickybeak... much appreciated :)  
> Hope I did the fandom justice :)  
> Tx


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